


Merces Letifer

by SugarsweetRomantic



Series: The World of Assassination [2]
Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, As Is Riya, But Lucy and Wyatt Don't Seem to Mind, Colombia - Freeform, Croatia, Eventual Garcia Flynn/Wyatt Logan/Lucy Preston, Eventual Romance, F/M, Germany, Gun Violence, How Do I Tag, Human Disaster Garcia Flynn, I Can't Promise Anything Else, I Don't Even Know, India, M/M, New Zealand, Rittenhouse (Timeless), Scotland, Slow Burn, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Someone Needs to Tell Flynn Murder Is Not Flirting, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Trash OT3 is Safe, United States, Violence, World Travel, eventual OT3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22676791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarsweetRomantic/pseuds/SugarsweetRomantic
Summary: An agent without personal history to claim. A woman with a family history she'd like to forget. A fugitive with a history he refuses to let go.With Cahill gone, the International Contract Agency has taken some months to reorganise and re-evaluate their positions. Working together with Rittenhouse wasn't something Lucy Preston ever saw herself and Logan doing, but here she was -- here they were. It wasn't the first time in history that a common enemy had turned two parties into allies. But if that were true, why did she have such trouble trusting Rittenhouse's promises?After the death of his wife, Garcia Flynn has relocated his loved ones all over the world: Iris is in Colombia, Jiya is in Italy, and everyone else, well, everywhere. He was by himself, and on the run. The only question that came to mind was: "Now what?"What no one notices, is that danger is closer than they realise it is. Time is running out.Welcome back to the World of Assassination.
Relationships: Garcia Flynn & Iris Flynn, Garcia Flynn & Jiya, Garcia Flynn/Wyatt Logan, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Rufus Carlin & Lucy Preston, Rufus Carlin/Jiya, Wyatt Logan/Lucy Preston
Series: The World of Assassination [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1491581
Comments: 13
Kudos: 5





	1. Nightcall - Hawke's Bay, New Zealand

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, I finally managed to write the second half of this much-too-large storyline! In case you missed it, this is the sequel to Lethal Trade, which you can read [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18151253/chapters/42921980).

_ Logan, _

_ The ICA Board has accepted Rittenhouse's contract: eliminate the Shadow Client and neutralise his militia. Examining the intel you acquired in Colorado, our analysts have managed to track down a key member of the militia. Judith Campbell, a gifted field infiltrator, former eco-terrorist and girlfriend of the late Stiv Nikolaev. Campbell's cell has already carried out a number of attacks on members of the global elite whom we assume were Rittenhouse operatives. She and her new partner, a former CICADA mercenary by the name of Harry Weiss, are laying low in a remote beach house in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand -- no doubt planning the militia's next attack. Campbell is undoubtedly high on the client's target list, but for now it's information that we seek. So, infiltrate the house and get us a lead on the Shadow Client.  _

_ L.P. _

They didn’t often communicate through written text. It was too messy, too easy to track down. So to say Logan had been surprised when he had received the neatly-written letter through the mail was an understatement. He hadn’t even been completely sure that Lucy knew of the apartment he had been staying in for the last seven months since their mission in Hokkaido, Japan. He usually stayed in Europe -- he didn’t stand out as much in countries with mostly Caucasian populations. Just another single guy renting an apartment. A bachelor pad, if you would. This time, however, he had retreated to San Francisco.

The letter itself was written on thick, quality paper with an embossed monogram of Lucy’s initials at the top. She had used a ballpoint pen. It created a strange contrast between the luxuriousness of the paper and the ballpoint ink, but he knew exactly why she had done so. She loved using beautiful pens with India ink, but the more exclusive the pen and ink, the easier they were to trace. If she used a run-of-the-mill supermarket-brand ballpoint, it could be anyone. The monogrammed paper was her middle ground. 

Along with the letter, Lucy had sent him flight information. He was due to fly out of SFO tomorrow morning, arriving in Auckland the day afterwards. From there, he would fly to Napier Airport, where there would be a rental car waiting for him. He would drive to the coast, where he would find a dinghy which he would use to get to the private beach the house was located on. Then, a walk to the house. A handwritten comment on the travel itinerary read:  _ You won't mind the exercise, will you?  _ Lucy had drawn a small winking smiley face next to it. 

“You must be excited,” Rufus commented as Lucy handed him his coffee order. “You finally have a mission with Logan again.” Lucy had to suppress a smile. Sure, working with Agent Christopher was fine; the woman was a magnificent asset, but she had missed Logan. However, they’d mainly had assignments and contracts in Northern Africa and the Middle East, so Logan just would have stood out too much. Besides, after the whole Cahill debacle, they all had had to lay low for a while. For her, that meant retreating to Preston Manor for a while. She would have been bored out of her mind, if she hadn’t had access to her mother’s old book collection. 

Currently though, they were waiting for Logan’s plane to touch down on New Zealand soil. They didn’t often send him on direct flights, but this was such a remote destination that any delays meant more uncertainties. In this trade, uncertainties were what got agents and handlers killed. So, he needed to get to Hawke’s Bay as soon as possible. Judith Campbell was there right now, but she could relocate at any moment. They needed to beat her to the punch. 

Rufus pulled up a floorplan for the home. It was of decent size, with an indoor swimming pool and large open-space living area, with a single bedroom with ensuite and walk-in closet one floor above. Opposite of the bedroom, on the other side of the landing, there was an office, along with a small square section of the home that had been crossed out.

“What’s that?” Lucy asked, pointing at the square.

“I have  _ no  _ idea,” Rufus responded. “Utility closet?”

“It’s a bit large for a utility closet. And look,” Lucy commented, pulling up the ground floor plan once more, “there’s a flight of stairs leading down from that space to the garage.” 

“A panic room?” Agent Christopher suddenly suggested from the other side of Lucy’s team office. She had been filing some paperwork with headphones on; Lucy had no idea that she’d been listening along. “Any special walls?”

“You know,” Rufus responded, taking a closer look at the drawings on the screen, “I’m no construction or architecture expert, but I’m pretty sure that that means reinforced door.”

“Definitely a panic room.” Lucy decided. An alert popped up on Rufus’ screen: Logan had just touched down at Napier. Perfect. Time to update him on the situation and get ready for his infiltration. Grabbing her headset, Lucy took a seat behind her own computer screens. She took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly before clicking ‘connect’. Three beeps, then a slight crackle as the connection came to life.

“Good evening, Logan.” 

The information Logan could find in Campbell’s home was barely enough to be called intel, but it was something, at least. Rittenhouse had put Campbell on the hit list, but Lucy had taken her off of it immediately. She was of no danger to the ICA nor Rittenhouse, that much was clear. Judith did not deserve to die just because some hotheaded middle-management type had decided it would be easier. That wasn’t how things worked. They never had, and they never would. 

Speaking of Rittenhouse, there was something Lucy had to tell Logan. Or, show him, to be more precise. She couldn’t follow him to New Zealand, not this time. But what she  _ could  _ do was send him another piece of mail. Grabbing the photo the Rittenhouse contact had given her on the train all those months ago from her journal, Lucy carefully put it in an envelope and wrote down the New Zealand address where Logan would be staying for the rest of the week, to reinforce the businessman-on-holiday excuse for him to be in the country in the first place. Now, all she could do was wait.

_ Three days later _

“So, is it you?” Lucy could barely conceal her excitement as she asked the question, speaking into her mobile phone as she looked out of the window of her hotel room.

“It is me,” Logan replied from the other side of the secure line. Lucy was surprised at the absence of emotion in his voice.

“Anything you remember now?” she asked. Silence. She supposed that meant: ‘No.’ Oh well, it had been worth a shot. “Well, it’s official,” she continued. “New Zealand has paid off. The client has given us carte blanche: hunt down the militia by any means necessary. “

“A week ago, Rittenhouse was a threat,” Logan replied. “How did you swing the Board?”

“The Board are practical people, Logan. A blank cheque is hard to turn down,” Lucy answered truthfully. “Besides, the Shadow Client’s war on Rittenhouse is causing a global panic.” She glanced at the TV in her room, which was showing the news headlines. The big text being broadcast read:  _ CEOs under siege -- sixth corporate killing in 2 weeks. Montréal PD link helicopter explosion to international terrorist militia.  _ “Someone will need to stop the militia. It might as well be us.”

“And the woman on the train? You never told the Board about her offer.”

“Taking a contract for personal gain is against ICA regulations,” Lucy stated. 

“Cahill would have been proud.”

“Is that a sense of humour, Logan? What’s next, crying at the movies?” She had to joke; she had to lighten the mood. She never had to take the contract. She could have just told the Board about the offer to disclose information about Logan’s past. And yet, she hadn’t. 

“Why  _ are  _ you doing this, Lucy?” She exhaled on a shaky breath.

“I know what it’s like...to have everything taken from you. She claims to know about your past. Your childhood, your memories. Everything that was stolen from you in Croatia.”

“And you trust her?”

“About as far as I can throw her. But this is our best lead in a decade. I say it’s time we break a few rules.” 


	2. The Finish Line - Miami, USA

Lorena’s funeral had been a Roman Catholic one. Jiya had allowed herself to be dragged into the church by the woman’s family, figuring she would at least get a chance to say goodbye this way. The embalmer had covered the damage up nicely, but Jiya had seen gun violence victims before. There was a certain something that...hung over Lorena’s body, like a cloudy veil. Who knew, maybe Lorena’s mother’s rambling about  _ malocchio _ , the evil eye, had been getting to her. 

Now, months later, she was still in Naples, and still under the protection of Lorena’s family. As Lorena’s father had told her when she had first arrived: “ _ Un'amica di nostra figlia è anche nostra figlia. _ ” They considered her their third daughter. It had been strange at first, adapting to life in the Mediterranean, but she had gotten used to it eventually. In the mornings, Jiya would help out around the house, after which she would have the afternoons to do whatever she pleased. It was alright, but she missed Iris, and even Flynn. She missed her family.

In the meantime, while she was stuck in Europe, Jiya figured the least she could do was try to figure out who had attempted to warn them of the incoming attack. There weren’t many people in the world who knew she preferred Star Trek over Star Wars, and there were even fewer who knew how to break into a semi-secure network -- she just hadn’t had the resources at the farm to completely hide their signals. The intersection of those two sets of people contained exactly one person.

Rufus.

Maybe, just maybe, she would be able to track his IP and send him a message. Somehow.

“Good morning, Logan. Welcome back on American soil.” Lucy’s warm voice sounded through Logan’s earpiece once again.

“Good morning, Lucy.” 

“Your destination is the annual Global Innovation Motor Race in Miami, Florida. After analysing the data from Judith Campbell's laptop, the case is clear; the Rittenhouse defectors are Feng and Fei Yunshan, heads of robotics developer Wangguan Industries.”

“Where have I heard that name before?” Logan wondered as he grabbed his suitcase from the baggage carousel and made his way for the exit of Miami International Airport. 

“They’re the billionaires who just bought half of Amazon. A visionary inventor and technological innovator, Feng Yunshan has spearheaded Wangguan Industries to the bleeding edge of technological development. His equally brilliant and beautiful daughter Fei is not only a financial wizard but also a fiercely competitive racecar driver, with a fiery temper to match.”

“She sounds lovely.” 

“This is no joking matter. Wangguan enjoys enormous popularity with global consumers. However, few are aware that the company is also one of the world's leading suppliers of next-gen military tech. Last year, despotic ruler Jin Po deployed prototype Wangguan drones against peaceful civilian protesters in the now infamous 'Tungan Valley Incident'. And although it has yet to be proven, there is little doubt that the Yunshans personally brokered the deal, making them complicit in a war crime.” When Logan remained silent, Lucy continued: “It is unclear why the Yunshans would betray their masters, but likely, the fear of being next on the shadow client's hit list has pressured them to cut a deal with the enemy. Undoubtedly, with Wangguan Industries on their side, the militia will increase their attacks ten-fold, and so our contract obligates us to retire Feng and Fei Yunshan and contain the damage they may inflict on Rittenhouse. I will leave you to prepare.”

The Global Innovation event was humongous in size, Logan realised as he walked up to the main entrance gate. There were people everywhere, and, more importantly, security guards everywhere as well. The guards at the entrance were frisking every single person. There was no way he would be able to get past them unspotted. He would have to find another way in. Climbing over the wall was an option, but there were too many witnesses. He  _ could  _ try to find a guard’s uniform, but he had a feeling the guards at the front entrance would realise he wasn’t one of their colleagues. He glanced to his left. There was a small tunnel leading to the event staff parking garage. Now that was an option. Following the route, Logan made his way down into the garage. It was cool and damp; a significant contrast with the Miami summer sun. The place was nearly deserted, save for a handful of guards and someone in a flamingo-shaped mascot suit. 

“There’s an entrance to the Wangguan building on the far left,” Lucy commented, “but there’s camera surveillance and you’ll need a keycard to get in.”

“Hey Logan?” This time it was Rufus’ voice. “That package I sent you; did you bring the contents?” Logan nodded ever so slightly. “There are three electronic scramblers in there. They’ll work as a master key on any electronic lock, but they’ll only work once. After that, they need to be reset again.” 

“Can you take out the cameras?” Lucy asked Rufus. Logan could hear him chuckle.

“I can certainly try.” Exactly 2 minutes and twenty-three seconds later, while Lucy had continued informing Logan of the infrastructure of the Wangguan building, he added: “Done. All cameras in the entire building are down, for at least fifteen to twenty minutes.”

“How in the world did you manage to do that so fast?” Lucy asked as Logan approached the Wangguan basement entrance.

“Onion routing! I selected a set of nodes which were arranged into a circuit, then I used asymmetric key cryptography to establish a session key with the first node, and…” Rufus began. Logan chuckled, mentally tuning out of the conversation. Lucy was probably regretting asking the man the question, but Logan knew she had a soft spot for the young engineer. She’d let him ramble while she watched Logan move through the Wangguan building. 

“There’s a laundry room on your right,” Lucy commented quietly as he walked down a hallway, undoubtedly still looking at his position on the floorplan of Wangguan. “Try for a uniform?” He nudged the door with his shoulder, and it flew right open. “Thank God for employees who don’t remember to lock up.” Inside, Logan took a look at his options. There were guard uniforms and suits that looked like they were for higher-ranked security. He couldn’t wear those; the risk of another guard realising he didn’t belong there was much too big. On the other side, there were receptionists’ uniforms, those of engineers, and scientists’ long white coats.

“Rufus?” Logan asked. “Do you still have access to the video feed?”

“Of course,” came the reply. “What do you need?”

“Where is Mr. Yunshan, and what are the people near him wearing?” Large office buildings like these often had restricted zones. He needed to be able to get into wherever Feng Yunshan was without standing out.

“From the looks of it, he’s hovering on the top floor. There’s big bad guys in suits and what look to be doctors, or maybe researchers.”

“Thanks, Rufus.” The lab coat seemed like the best bet. He pulled one on and exited the laundry room. “Time to go find Yunshan.”

_ Two weeks later - Rittenhouse Digital Meeting Room _

“Berlin. Shanghai. Montréal. We’re bleeding operatives, panic is spreading, and now we’re axing our own?” 

“Yunshan was a traitor,” Emma Whitmore replied calmly as the Rittenhouse Partner sat back down. “He would have caused incalculable damage.”

“And he won’t be the last. This is exactly what the enemy wants. We need to fight the sickness, not the symptom.” 

“And I have just the tool for the job,” Emma responded.

“Right,” a different Partner commented. “The Preston woman. Benjamin Cahill warned you about her, didn’t he? The crusader…”

“I can handle Miss Preston,” Emma reassured him. “Everyone hates power until you offer them some.”

“You ought to know,” the Partner replied, scoffing. His hologram flickered twice. 

“ICA speaks the enemy’s language,” Emma explained. “We need them. For now.”

“And once we don’t?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” She was growing tired of the Partners’ never-ending questioning of her decisions. She knew what was best for Rittenhouse, if they would just let her bring her plans to fruition.

“Fact remains: we are shadow-boxing. We need to know who we’re up against.”

“I was getting to that,” Emma snarled. She pulled up a photo of one of their recently-deceased operatives. Zooming in on the background, she circled the silhouette of a tall Slavic man. “His name is Garcia Flynn, the late Mr. Cobb’s head of security. Cobb was ground zero; the first of our operatives to die. It had to be one of his staff. Someone with military training and access to the plane.”

“You’re grasping at straws, Whitmore.”

“Flynn is a mercenary. A veteran of every backwater tragedy you’ve ever ignored on the five o’clock news. Chechnya. Croatia. Sierra Leone. The list goes on. But, before ‘89, nothing. No records of any kind.”

“Come on… CIA, KGB? Lots of spies went dark.”

“After the curtain was lifted, I cast a very wide net. Garcia Flynn simply does  _ not  _ exist.” 

Just as the Partner was about to yell at Emma again, the elderly woman at the head of the table cleared her throat.

“If you’re all quite done wetting yourselves with excitement, I couldn’t give two shits where he came from. I only want to know one thing.”

“How does he know about Rittenhouse?” Emma filled in.

_ Central Europe _

“I swear to God,” Jiya stated, “this hearts-and-flowers crap will get us both killed. Can’t you see? Your so-called ‘friend’ is working for  _ them  _ now. He’s not the man you knew.” 

“This is his fight too, Jiya. Even if he doesn’t realise it. Like it or not, Logan is our last and only lead on the Partners. He needs to remember.” Flynn took a few steps through the rubble surrounding him. The old sign on the wall was still mocking him, reading:  _ sirotište _ .

“He’s coming for us. And unlike you, he won’t hesitate!” Jiya was nearly yelling into her phone now.

“Just get me inside.” Flynn ended the call and dialled a different number. “Rico? I need a favour.”


	3. Three-Headed Serpent - Santa Fortuna, Colombia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't speak Spanish, so the Spanish in this chapter is based on Portuguese and Google Translate. If anything is severely off, I apologise!

“Good morning, Logan.” This time, Lucy’s voice wasn’t coming from an earpiece, but from an encrypted file on a locked USB drive. Logan had downloaded the MP3 onto his phone, and was listening to it on the bus from Bogotá to Santa Fortuna. It made him look like just another American tourist on his way to see the ancient ruins and religious sites, listening to music to make the time go by. “Our Rittenhouse contact has shared the identity of the shadow client: a former mercenary and bodyguard by the name of Garcia Flynn. His past is a black void, but our analysts are digging deep.” 

Logan paused the recording. Garcia Flynn. Why did he feel like he’d heard that name before? He was certain he’d never encountered any Garcia Flynns on any missions, and yet he rang a distant bell. Strange. He pressed ‘resume’. 

“Meanwhile, we've had a breakthrough of our own. Comparing the militia's attack patterns with global shipping and transportation routes, we've figured out how Flynn and his paramilitary move around the world undetected. They're using the distribution network of the Delgado Cartel, Colombia's biggest drug manufacturer. Clearly, Flynn must have struck some sort of deal with the Delgado's.”

Militia with a connection to a drug cartel. How original.

“Consequently, if we can cripple the cartel, we can severely limit the militia's strike range. But to do so, we need to slay a three-headed serpent. Sociopathic cartel head Rico Delgado, and his two closest lieutenants: PR guru Jessica Taylor and savant chemist Jorge Franco.”

Now, Jessica Taylor. That was a name of which he was certain he had heard it before -- and out of the woman’s own mouth. Jessica had been the blonde woman at the auction in Paris, flirting with him before Connor Mason had introduced himself. Known alias:  _ the Face _ . Logan had to admit, the woman was charming. In another life, perhaps, who knew? Maybe even another timeline. One where he hadn’t been trained to assassinate. In the meantime, the recording of Lucy’s voice continued playing.

“With equal parts guts and guile, Rico Delgado runs a thriving billion-dollar criminal empire. The word is, the brutal and volatile cartel head is hell-bent on becoming the number one drug lord in the world. To achieve this, Jessica, a childhood friend of Delgado's, has been buttering up state leaders and decision makers, paving the way for an expansion of the Delgado logistics network, while the brilliant, but aloof and antisocial Franco has been hard at work developing a new type of super cocaine. So, three of Colombia's most infamous crime lords, inhabiting a decidedly hostile environment. I will leave you to prepare.” A soft click, and the recording ended. Logan took a look at his watch. Two more hours to go. 

“ _ Srta. Taylor _ ?” The voice of Ana, her assistant, came from the opposite side of the door of Jessica’s bedroom.

“ _ Sí _ ?” she responded, placing her hairbrush on her desk.

“ _ Srta. Flynn está aquí. _ ”

“ _ Déjala entrar, por favor. _ ” The door opened, and Iris came walking in. With a soft sigh, she sat down on the bed. Jessica raised an eyebrow and eyed her. “What’s up?”

“I’m bored.” The young woman let herself fall backwards onto the sheets. “Everyone’s off doing interesting stuff with Dad, and I’m here. Doing absolutely nothing. I almost considered learning how to knit. Knitting, Jess!” Iris groaned loudly. In response, Jessica threw a pillow at her face. “Hey!”

“Listen up,” Jess decided. “Everyone who has helped your dad so far has ended up dead.”

“You’re acting like I don’t know that already. Some asshole killed my mom, you don’t have to rub it in.”

“What I’m trying to say, is that your dad didn’t send you here to stay with me for fun. First of all, you burn like an ant under a magnifying glass, so Colombia really isn’t the climate for you. He wants you by his side, but he sent you here to keep you safe.” Jessica sat down next to her.

“There’s some irony in sending me to a drug cartel to keep me  _ safe _ ,” Iris commented, and Jessica burst out laughing.

“Yeah, I guess there is.”

_ One Day Later - San Francisco, Calfornia, USA _

“Mission status: Colombia assignment - successful. Tactical targets - neutralised. Militia transport network - disabled. Location of primary target - unknown. Team chasing several leads. End message, encrypt and send.” Lucy turned her phone off and came to stand still in front of a small grave. It was marked  _ Amy Preston _ . 

\--

_ “I’m not as strong as you,” Carol Preston said to her husband as they stood in front of a small grave. “They have to pay for what they did.” _

_ “It needs to stop,” Henry Wallace replied. “You need to stop.” He laid his hand on the shoulder of the teenager in front of him. The young girl was staring at the grave, a small toy airplane in her hands. _

_ “If my source checks out, we can prove the Board knew about the chemical leaks,” Carol protested. “We’ll have grounds for a retrial.” Henry grabbed her arm and gently led her away from the grave, away from the grieving girl. _

_ “It won’t make a difference; they’re too powerful.”  _

_ “They’re not the Devil, Henry. They’re just a company. They’re not above the law; don’t you see? This is bigger than Amy. Those bastards killed eighteen people!” _

_ “And they got away with it.” Henry sighed. “Think about what that means.”  _

_ “No-one’s untouchable!” _

_ Behind them, the teenager quietly repeated: “No-one’s untouchable.” She placed the airplane on top of the smooth stone. _

\--

Lucy laid a single rose next to a small toy plane.

\--

_ “Lucy?” Carol called from their car at the entrance of the graveyard. “It’s time to go!” _

_ “I’m coming!” the teenager replied, running her hand along Amy’s gravestone once more before she began walking over to her parents. While she was on her way, Carol started the engine. _

_ Lucy never heard the car bomb go off. _

_ She just saw the explosion. _

\--

Heaving a deep breath, Lucy turned her back to the three gravestones marking the lives of her parents and sister. It was time to go back home. 

_ Johannesburg, South Africa _

It was so dark in the Ether Corporation lab that it was hard to see, but Flynn managed to locate the vial of serum anyway. Securing it, he placed it into an armoured suitcase.

“We got what we came for,” he announced to his small team of mercenaries. “Move out.” As the men began to exfiltrate the building, Flynn approached the scientist that he had instructed them to leave alive. He was cuffed to a chair, as opposed to the guards, whose bodies were scattered throughout the corridors. 

“Remember me?” he asked, pressing some buttons on the bomb strapped to the man’s chest. The scientist shook his head violently. Flynn set the timer to five minutes.

“Pity. I do remember you.”


	4. Chasing a Ghost - Mumbai, India

“Good evening, Agent Christopher.” 

“Good evening, Lucy.” 

It wasn’t often that Lucy sent Agent Christopher on missions instead of Logan. It wasn’t that she was a bad agent, on the contrary, she was at the top of her league. But if Lucy had anything to say about it, she tried to let the woman stay close to her family. She had settled down a few years ago; married a lovely schoolteacher named Michelle, and she had recently adopted Michelle’s two children. Lucy was happy for her. She was pretty sure Christopher -- Denise, as she now went by -- wanted out, but the ICA didn’t let their personnel go that easily. They would use Michelle and her children as leverage to make sure Denise didn’t give away any trade secrets that needed to stay hidden. Denise was dead-set on never letting her family get dragged into the practices of the ICA. And thus, she remained an active agent, going on as few missions as possible without upsetting the Board.

This time, though, there was no way Lucy could send Logan. He would stand out like a sore thumb among the crowd, a disastrous place to be when the efficacy of your work depended on your ability to blend in. No, she needed Denise this time.

“I apologise for contacting you so late,” Lucy began. “The militia has released a hostage tape outing the existence of Rittenhouse to the world. This was a fatal mistake, and our analysts are tracing its origins as we speak. In the meantime, we have a lead on Garcia Flynn's top lieutenant.”

“Now  _ that  _ is good news,” Denise murmured. The entire agency was currently working overtime to track Flynn down. Everyone was ready for the chaos to be over. 

“Turns out the Delgado cartel's counterfeiting unit was creating fake IDs for the militia, and one operative in particular stands out: Karl Winterberg, an infamous sea pirate better known by his nom-de-guerre ‘The Maelstrom’. The Maelstrom and his cutthroat band of outlaws were the scourge of the shipping industry in the post-recession years, but his reign of terror came to an end with the disastrous 2014 hijacking of the supertanker ‘Frances King’. Chinese elite forces stormed the ship, resulting in the death of a dozen sailors and most of the Maelstrom's crew. Karl, however, slipped away unseen. The Maelstrom’s connection to Flynn is unknown, but we believe it was he who carried out the audacious killing of a Rittenhouse CEO in Shanghai, along with two reactivated members of his old pirate gang: Vanya Shah, a shady figure in the Mumbai criminal underworld, and Dawood Rangan, the gang's old cashier-turned-movie-producer.”

“Mumbai, huh?”

“Yes. Which is why you’re the perfect woman for the job. With a population larger than the average European country, you should be able to blend in quite easily. Shah, Rangan and the Maelstrom form Garcia Flynn's eastern cell. They are a crack-strike team, and stopping them is our client's most pressing concern. Unfortunately, the elusive Maelstrom seems to have vanished into the seedy underbelly of Mumbai, the cradle of his criminal legend, and no-one knows his whereabouts, or what he currently looks like. So. A bandit queen, a showbiz charlatan, and one certifiable ghost. I shall leave you to prepare.”

Lucy was used to watching footage from the camera glasses Logan usually wore, but this time, Denise’s camera was hidden in her clothing. The angle was lower, and a bit more shaky than usual, but she could work with it. Finding Vanya Shah had been easy. The woman resided in an old train station at the edge of the city’s inner limits, where she granted the locals audience, either finding solutions for their problems and turmoils or having her personal guard send them away. Denise had snuck in and poisoned her tea with cyanide after her assistant had tested it. Public, and a bit dangerous? Yes. Messy? Never. And highly effective.

“How did you know she wouldn’t detect the cyanide?” Lucy wondered out loud. Denise chuckled.

“There was a twenty- to forty-percent chance she wouldn’t be able to smell the almond,” she explained.

“That means you had a sixty- to eighty-percent chance of getting caught.” 

“Sometimes, you’ve just got to risk it.” 

Next up, Dawood Rangan. Unlike Logan, who liked to take the high ground and stake things out before he moved, Denise preferred to move on the ground, listening to the conversations around her and using the anecdotal evidence to figure out what to do next. She quickly figured out Dawood was holed up inside of the Rangan Productions offices, a large multi-storey complex a few streets away from Vanya’s train station. It was a strange sight to see: a luxury building on the edge of the Dharavi slums. Capitalism at work. 

“I think I might be able to get an angle on him from the chawl,” Denise decided after a while. “Where did the Agency stash my briefcase?” 

Ah, yes, Denise’s briefcase. She had requested for a briefcase containing her favourite silenced sniper rifle to be stashed somewhere secure. In that way, she could circumvent detection or being marked as suspicious, while still being able to shoot from afar if she needed to. One of the ICA’s inactive agents had been given the task to smuggle the Sieger 300 into place. Lucy looked at her notes.

“It should be in the parking garage across the street.” Denise huffed and spun around. She retrieved the black, unmarked briefcase without a problem. “But how will you get into the chawl?” Lucy asked.

“It’s a chawl,” Denise replied. “I can probably just walk in.”

As it turned out, Denise was right. No-one batted an eye when she entered the chawl and made her way up the stairs of the inner courtyard. She forced her way into a narrow stairway which led up to a hidden balcony on the top level. There was nothing there except a few piles of bricks -- a storage area. Setting up the sniper took a short while, and Lucy grabbed coffee in the meantime. Once she had gotten back, Denise was in position, gazing through the viewfinder with the patience only true professionals had. Lucy had never been one for sniping. It took too long; it involved too much waiting. Suddenly, she heard a click, and a loud whizz.

“Tango down,” Denise confirmed. “Do we still need this?” she asked, motioning at the Sieger. The Board was probably going to kill Lucy for this, but she cared more about getting Denise out of there than the expenses of having to purchase a new sniper rifle.

“Leave it,” Lucy decided. “Take the briefcase though, please.” It would be easier to link the briefcase to Denise than the sniper, if anyone had seen her walking through the city with it. “Stash it back where you got it from, and I’ll make sure it gets picked up.” In fact, she was writing out the orders as she spoke. The confirmation arrived: the briefcase would be gone in eleven minutes. She could live with that.

The search for Karl - the Maelstrom - led Denise to an underground hideout.

“There’s only men here,” she commented. “There’s no way I’ll be able to slip by them undetected.” 

“In that case, I suppose we’ll need more patience once again.” Denise sighed and sat down at a cafe terrace across the street from the hideout entrance, ordering a bottle of water. Lucy hated this. She hated that it was much easier for men to blend in than women. She hated that it was much easier for Caucasion agents to blend in than agents of colour. She hated… A lot of things, but she couldn’t let her frustration with modern-day society distract her right now.

“I’m tapping into your channel and checking for camera feeds,” Rufus mentioned quietly, his face nearly melding with his computer screens. “I can’t find any in the vicinity so far.” No cameras was good. No cameras meant that they wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of erasing hard drives later on, which was never not a mess. It left tiny traces that the ICA would rather not leave. Denise would take the Maelstrom down. She just needed to wait.

_ One Week Later - Somewhere in the Dinarides, Croatia _

“According to records, this was a youth correctional facility until 1962,” Lucy explained through his earpiece as Logan walked up to a dilapidated building, “when the estate was overtaken by an obscure Soviet research fund: the Institute for Human Betterment.”

“It looks deserted,” Logan commented, entering through what once had been the main entrance. 

“The place was abandoned after a fire in ‘89. Then, just a few weeks ago, it was acquired by an anonymous investor using cryptocurrency. It  _ has  _ to be Garcia Flynn.” Logan heard a footstep in the distance.

“He’s here.” 

“Be careful, Logan. The breadcrumbs were almost too easy to follow. It could be a trap--” Lucy warned, but the connection suddenly dropped. Logan didn’t have to see the flash to know what had just occurred: an EMP -- an electromagnetic pulse interfering with any and all electronic equipment. 

“Not a trap,” he concluded, speaking to himself in the hopes that Lucy might still be able to hear him. “An invitation.” He took the safety off of his handgun and walked upstairs. There, on the far end of the largest room, stood a man with his back towards Logan, looking out through a hole in the wall. He held a pistol in his right hand.

“You came home,” Garcia Flynn stated. “I knew you would. You’ve come a long way, Logan. And even now…” Flynn dropped his gun onto the floor. “You don’t remember.” He turned to face Logan, who was aiming his own gun at the man’s head by now.

“This place,” Logan commented, swallowing once. 

“This was our prison,” Flynn confirmed. “Where the Doctor trained us, shaped us into killers for Rittenhouse. Now, you don’t remember; they ripped it out of you; wiped it away. But I do. I remember everything.” Logan wanted to gasp for air, but he remained calm.

“You’re a terrorist with nothing to lose. You’d say anything. Flynn turned to face two marks on the wall -- two right handprints. Logan pressed the barrel of his gun against the back of the man’s head.

“I know it’s difficult,” he sighed. “You never miss your mark or question your function. But we made a pact, you and I. Do this...and we both lose.”

“There was an incident…” Logan managed to recall. “But that boy, he died.”

“He  _ lived _ ,” Flynn countered. “Because of you. Don’t you remember his name? You know this. Deep down, you know.” He spun around slowly, letting the barrel of Logan’s pistol rest against his own forehead. “What was his name?” 

Logan’s index finger trembled on the trigger.

He dropped his gun to his side.

“Subject 6. Your name is Subject 6.”

“And what is our purpose, Subject Wyatt Logan?”

Logan was suddenly overcome by a deep rage against all who had taken his life away from him. They had molded him from when he was a young boy; trained him to become a societal monster. A killer, devoid of emotions. They had taken  _ everything _ .

“To take them all down.”

_ Four Days Later - Berlin, Germany _

“We were going to tear it all down,” Flynn explained. “The Institute. Rittenhouse. Everyone who had ever hurt us. We failed. The Partners grew paranoid. They made sure that Doctor Ort-Meyer’s children would never challenge them again.” He sighed. “I’m the only one who got away unchanged. The only one left who remembers.”

“Ort-Meyer was Rittenhouse,” Lucy suddenly realised. She and Logan had taken the Doctor down, years ago, but she never had expected anything even close to this. 

“Everything he did to us; everything he made us do. It all leads back to them. To Rittenhouse.”

“I’m breaking more ICA rules than I can count, Flynn,” Lucy snarled. “What’s your play?” She set her glass of wine down on the table in the middle of the abandoned basement.

“The Partners hide behind a cloak of anonymity. Only one person knows their true identities. Your client. The top controller. The one they call the Constant. They’re the key.” Lucy scoffed.

“But she’s untraceable. So what am I missing?” 

“A man would come to the Institute. A man with a Rittenhouse pin.” Flynn closed his eyes as he recalled the memory. “The first Constant. If we find him,  _ if _ he’s still alive, he’s our way in.” 

“You don’t know who he is,” Lucy spoke quietly. “But Logan--Wyatt does. That’s what this reunion is all about.”

“Show them,” Flynn said, nodding his head at Jiya, who had been silently sitting in the corner while they spoke.

“You’re just going to hand it over?” the young woman questioned. “Our one bargaining chip?”

“Jiya…” She sighed.

“Fine.” Jiya reached for an armoured suitcase and laid it onto the table. “Logan’s memory was erased. Irreversibly, at the time. But after Ort-Meyer’s death, his estate was acquired by the Ether Corporation.” Ether, that had been the corporation Noah Caruso and Francesca de Santis had been working for in Italy. “And they...made an antidote.” She opened the case, revealing an ampule of a red liquid and an injection system. 

“It’s a long shot, I know,” Flynn commented solemnly. 

“This is not how it works,” Lucy protested. “We don’t just join the Revolution. ICA is neutral. We don’t take sides.”

“I hate to break it to you, lady,” Jiya countered, slamming the suitcase shut, “but neutrality  _ is  _ a side. It’s the side of the status quo.” 

“People have died. Civilians. You align yourselves with terrorists, murderers…” Flynn stood up and came to stand in front of Lucy.

“Sometimes even monsters serve a purpose.” 

“Look--” Lucy began, but she was interrupted by Logan.

“Enough,” he declared. “Lucy, you have a choice. But I made mine a long time ago. I will finish what I started.” Lucy sighed and retrieved her phone from her pocket. She typed out a quick message:  _ Croatia site abandoned. Garcia Flynn location unknown.  _ Encrypt and send. Nodding at Jiya and Flynn, she watched as Flynn loaded the injector and raised it to Logan’s neck. A soft click, and the antidote had been administered. 

Within a minute, Logan fell to the floor, unconscious. Lucy could only stand back and wait as Flynn carried him to a sofa.

Hours later, Logan finally opened his eyes again, and when he did, the first thing he said was: “i remember who he is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter turned out twice as long as all the others. Oops?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear what you thought!


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